REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 187 



in too many cases they have been sold to the farina mills at 

 prices from 5s. to 7s. per ton, and when the labour and expense 

 of carriage is deducted, the actual price was little more than half 

 their feeding and manurial value. The existence of these farina 

 mills in such a district is an unfavourable feature m regard to 

 its farming. If the diseased crop were so applied, and if a part 

 of the high price obtained for a sound one were spent in pur- 

 chasing manure required for their cultivation, it would make a 

 great difference on the condition of the land ; and potato grow- 

 ing will never be put on a proper footing with relation to that 

 condition and the interest of the proprietor, until both these 

 points receive more attention than they do at present. 



While, therefore, bad seasons and low prices of grain, over 

 which the Carse farmers had no control, have acted most pre- 

 judicially upon them, it appears that the system so long per- 

 severed in has reduced the condition of the land generally, and 

 that they and their predecessors have themselves to thank for 

 this ; when, if they had adopted a more liberal treatment of their 

 land, and availed themselves more of stock-feeding, they might 

 have been in a condition as flourishing as any class of farmers in 

 Scotland, notwithstanding the high rents paid ; and if such a 

 system had been followed, these rents would have been found to 

 be proportionally lower than those paid for worse land. They are 

 regulated by the price of grain, and cattle have been paying 

 well, while the grain rents have been low; but the tenants have 

 had but slight relief from that circumstance, as they still trusted 

 to the grain, and had little hope from cattle. They have been 

 waiting for the tide to rise and float their ship, instead of taking 

 assistance that was available, and the cargo has rotted while they 

 have been looking on. 



A small beginning has, however, been made in the right direc- 

 tion, and it is to be hoped that it may extend and be generally 

 adopted. 



In justice to the farmers in the county, whether on carse or 

 light lands, it must be allowed that much of the deficiency and 

 want of progress in their agriculture and condition of their land 

 arises from the feeling that their connection with it is limited to 

 the duration of the lease. They enter to a farm in low condi- 

 tion, and spend ten years in improving, and nine years in tearing 

 it down. If they could carry on, during the remainder of the 

 lease, the system some of them begin with, the farm would be in 

 really good heart at its termination. But they dare not do this, 

 because if they did, the farm may be advertised and let, in con- 

 sequence of the condition it is in, at a rent they, from their own 

 experience, could not promise to pay, to another, who would take 

 out all the condition that had been put in, and then get the rent 

 reduced, or be allowed to go, having made his own of it. Farms 



